


Balance

by SilverDagger



Category: Final Fantasy IX
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-31
Updated: 2011-12-31
Packaged: 2017-10-28 13:51:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/308532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverDagger/pseuds/SilverDagger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Garnet has her doubts about power, and what it means to be queen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Balance

When she takes the crown, Beatrix kneels to kiss her hand.

It's expected, Garnet knows. It's protocol. She shivers at the brush of soft lips against her fingers, brief and then gone, feels her stomach clench and blood heat her face, and it's a long moment before she trusts herself to breathe steadily again, or speak. 

“Your Majesty,” the General says, infinitely patient. Her face is unreadable, but the loyalty is there in her voice, silk and steel. 

Garnet doesn't know what she's done to command such respect, and the truth is, it scares her a little to think of it. It feels precarious to her, unsustainable somehow – the hard edge of orders she doesn't want or know how to give, the terrible certainty that this woman would do whatever Garnet commanded of her. For Alexandria. For her queen. Garnet remembers Cleyra and Burmecia, the fall of Lindblum, the way those battles had been ended – and a beach, bright in sunlight, the deafening aftermath of Bahamut called and answering. Her mother had wanted power. Garnet has it. And all she wants is to say _get up, Beatrix, please_ , but that isn't the way this works anymore. She's a queen. She needs to act the part.

“I don't want your obedience, knight,” she says instead. “Stand.” 

The words come out cooler than she had intended, more formal, and there's a moment when she doesn't know what she had meant to say, only that she hasn't come close to saying it at all. But Beatrix rises to her feet with a warrior's grace, and Garnet catches a glimpse of something old and wistful in the slight upward curve of her mouth.

 _Courage, Garnet thinks._

She clasps Beatrix's hands briefly, as a comrade might, and returns the smile.


End file.
